By far the dumbest Muslim response to Islamophobia is the use of what Leftists (in other contexts) call ‘whataboutery’ – in this case, the claim that many Islamic sins are shared if not exceeded by other, more respected communities, such as Hindus and Sikhs.

Forced marriage in Islam? – “Well yes, but what about the same practice in Hinduism? Why don’t you pick on them?

Head coverings in Islam? – “Well yes, but what about the same practice in Sikhism?”

And so on….

This is invalid for several reasons, but the primary objection is that people can (and do) leave Sikhism and Hinduism without having to fear for their lives. That is quite an important fact and one should never let the Muslims work their way around it. I have never heard of a Hindu being killed for apostasy, nor – given the chaos of ideas and approaches combined in that religion – do I believe a clear-cut apostasy from it to be possible. Hindus and Sikhs maintain their religious beliefs by choice, not under the threat of an early demise.

Of course, Hinduism and Sikhism have their own imperfections. Tradition of any kind is a retardant that freezes cultures at their least-evolved point in time. I don’t agree with nor do I condone the phenomenon of ‘arranged’ (i.e. forced) marriage in Hindu society. A woman should have the right to marry whomever she pleases. The caste system, propped up by Hindu theology, is similarly idiotic and must be abolished if India is to be taken at all seriously. ‘Castes’ do not exist in reality, and as Sartre put it ‘reality alone is reliable’.

I must declare a bias here. I’ve had something of a soft-spot for Hindus ever since I worked in a bookshop in Leicester before university. My fetish for Indian women has never gone away, nor has my gratitude for Indian medical expertise. After I injured my knee (badly) one time, I was taken promptly to the Leicester Royal Infirmary; arguably the best NHS hospital in the country and staffed almost exclusively by Indian migrants.

I have before me a compendium of Vedic hymns which I often enjoy delving into. The ancient Hindus were gifted in poetry and, unlike much Islamic literature, the canonical texts of Hinduism provide genuine philosophical insight for secular readers.

The flaws of the Islamic religion are often unique to it. Even when they are not, I repeat that they are magnified a thousand times by the fact the faith itself is compulsory, not voluntary. If Islam were only voluntary and the death penalty for apostasy was abolished, then the religion would be much more difficult to distinguish from other Eastern traditions. But then the death penalty is grounded in the Hadith, an authority second only to the Qur’an. This means that no reform is possible without opposing the judgement of Muhammad himself.

I welcome Hindus and Sikhs (in reasonable numbers) into the Western community. Voluntary religions can never be sensibly compared to a totalitarian cult.

The Caste system though a powerful force in Indian society is being slowly chipped away by increasing urbanization(it’s difficult to enforce caste segregation in urban areas) & because increasingly, young people, especially the well educated young people are opting for inter-caste love-marriages.

Also, there is a rich intellectual and debating tradition within Hinduism where nothing is sacred. There is even an atheist school called ‘Nastica’ started by a philosopher called Carvaka around 600 BC and it’s considered to be a part of Hindu traditions… Imagine an Atheist Christian!http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cārvāka

In general all the major Eastern Religions: the Indic: Buddhism, Jainism, Hindism, Sikhism and the Chinese/ Japanese: Zen Buddhism, Confusianism, Taoism etc have a strain of inherent tolerance, intellectual enquiry and debate and philosophical speculation within them in contrast to the Abrahamic religions, particularly Islam, where ‘say the wrong thing and we’ll murder you’ threat keeps intellectual debate to just semantics and hence intellectual stagnation.

India can develop quite quickly if some social reforms are enacted. The caste system can be dismantled with greater awareness. We should support the ‘untouchable’ caste in particular. No human is ‘untouchable’. It’s a horrid thought. My distant cousin, who emigrated to Chile, came back to the UK recently. We were talking about the places he’s travelled to and he mentioned briefly visiting India (Goa). He recalled a time when was he sat in a café and an attractive woman walked by outside. When he pointed her out to some local Indians, they reacted with disgust and pointed out that she was from a lower caste. It’s a shame that kind of thinking persists.

Most people whom I know of South Asian origin are Sikhs and are fairly well secularised; the wearing of a turban (except for formal occasions such a marriage) has declined through the generations. Sikhs do practice arranged marriage (though not to cousins as far as I am aware) and ‘honour’ killings have been known:

I believe that the British Raj viewed Sikhs as a ‘warrior caste’ to be incorporated into the British army, which had a Sikh regiment. Sikhs in return tend to be loyal to Britain and keen to progress within British society There are however cultural issues of gender and generation within the Sikh community which came to a fore with the staging of this play in 2004:

The thing is Hinduism is a Polytheistic Religion so there’s much less emphasis on divine-revelation and submission to an absolute force. In many ways, Polytheism means plurality: You can worship your God and I can worship mine. Sikhism, is, on the other hand, as far as I know, quite Universalist and is not plagued by proselytism. In addition, Sikhism was born in more modern times so their sacred scriptures are witnesses of more progressive ideas.

Hinduism and Sikhism are not prosletysing religions. They don’t consider that society must submit to them. They are therefore at ease being a minority without any fascistic impulse to believe that they are the ‘one true faith’. They therefore are genuinely pluralistic, unlike Islam which is an intolerant and supremacist cult that seeks to convert and change and bully a society to submit to it.

Hindus and Sikhs are both aware of the reality of Islam. They have no illusions. Their encounter with Islam in the Indian subcontinent exemplifies the evil of Islam. In my experience Hindus and Sikhs are very clued up about Islam, and understand the British awakening to the reality of Islam and are supportive of it. More generally, Hindus and Sikhs are well integrated economically, have good social indicators. Compare the levels of criminality in the Muslim community with Hindus and Sikhs. Sikh girls have also been targeted in the past by grooming gangs.

After 9/11 a Sikh acquaintance of mine said something I’ve never forgotten. He said ‘All you westerners are shocked by the horror of this event. As Sikhs we’re saddened but not shocked. This is Islam. We’ve known about it all our history” — because Sikhs were persecuted and even beheaded en masse in the past for refusing to convert to Islam.